


Hope, Fate and Barbara Lee Gordon

by IronBitch35730 (Ayita35730)



Series: City of Shadows [5]
Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Barbara is my fav, F/F, F/M, Jim Gordon is a fuckin dummy, how the hell did jim go from her to lee, my ideal woman tbh, relationship scenes and studies, their relationship wasnt nearly explored well enough
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-27
Updated: 2020-05-27
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:20:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24399385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ayita35730/pseuds/IronBitch35730
Summary: Lee Thompkins take on Barbara Kean and Jim Gordon.A part of a series of relationships on Gotham.
Relationships: Jim Gordon/Barbara Kean, Jim Gordon/Leslie Thompkins, Leslie Thompkins/Barbara Gordon
Series: City of Shadows [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1737664
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11





	Hope, Fate and Barbara Lee Gordon

Jim Gordon loves Lee Thompkins. 

When the world falls into mayhem (as it so often does in Gotham) Lee falls back into what she knows. 

And that’s a truth of Gotham no one disputes, not even Lee herself. 

Lee Thompkins loves Jim Gordon.

A statement just as true but infinitely more complicated. Because Lee, despite all her efforts, her tribulations and sacrifices still doesn’t know the truth of Jim. She gets bits and pieces of him, little scraps of his different sides that contradict. To her he’s more a mosaic of a man than a complete picture and almost no one can see it. Except. 

_ “What does Jim think of the new you?”  _

Jim Gordon hates Barbara Kean. 

That one doesn’t ring true like the others. 

_ “Jim who?” _

Lee scowls. She thought about hitting the woman again during their brief discussion, hating the way Barbara stared at her with that all-too-insightful gaze, her eyes almost childishly taunting—‘I know something you don’t know.’ Even when she was playing nice before she tried to kill Lee, she had some sort of sight. She knew what to say to get under people’s skin, to get under  _ Lee’s _ skin even moreso. Hell, she can say a lot of terrible things about Barbara (and will, given the slightest opportunity), but she can’t say the woman’s stupid. Those observational skills of hers have kept her ahead in Gotham. She sees things others don’t, things people don’t want her to see. 

Lee likes to think that she has similar skills, a way of getting to the core of things. But there’s always been one thing Barbara could see clearer than her. 

Jim.

Despite their breakup, despite how Jim claims to despise her, there’s some kind of kinship between them that Lee can never touch. Barbara  _ knows _ Jim, seemingly better than she knows herself, if her ever-changing personas are genuine. She always predicts him, always understands him, always moves in step with him like there’s some beat only the two of them hear. 

The city changed them together. They arrived young and in love and naive and Gotham poisoned them both simultaneously. They fell apart—away from each other and within themselves. 

But that connected them in some way. Whenever Jim needs help, it isn’t Lee he runs to, it’s Barbara. For the longest time she made excuses for it, thought that it was only due to Barbara’s resources—she’s come to know better since then. She knows it’s an instinct for Jim still, to run to Barbara. Jim believes in the justice of Gotham, that the city’s moral system can be shifted to something better. Something more like law and order rather than a hierarchy of chaos. 

Barbara dives headfirst into that very chaos he tries to prevent. Yet, somehow he’s always lientent with her. He  _ saved _ her from her own breakdown, moments after she tried to murder them both. And time and time again he allies himself with her and her darkness. He readily accepted the reality of Barbara Kean and even though he didn’t stay with her, he never denied her herself. He puts Lee on a pedestal and resents her for it in the same breath. The rules just simply don’t apply to Lee for him, even though she put everyone in danger with the virus, even though she murdered Sofia Falcone. Not because he knows her, not because he understands her motives but because he justifies them for her. 

He can’t see the real her, either. 

But Barbara and Jim are real with each other. They maintain an equilibrium of sorts. They’re safe from each other, safe together somehow because they keep surviving everything the city throws at them. It keeps drawing them closer in some inexplicable way—they’re like an unfinished thought, always trying to fill the missing space with neither quite able to complete it. 

The way they talk about each other, how Jim always seems  _ off  _ after speaking with Barbara, it makes Lee’s blood boil. It’s why she went after her when she was infected with the virus. Lee wants to break the bitch for still having a hold on him, for knowing Jim better than she does. Barbara knew the Jim Gordon of Before Gotham and knows how Gotham broke him because it broke her the same way. 

Lee isn’t like them. It’s changed her, but not fundamentally. She’s playing a role and Barbara can see it, see through her. Barbara could see that Lee is hoping if she jumps into this dark part of herself she’ll finally  _ understand _ like Barbara does. She’s hoping it’s the twisted brokenness that bonds them and not something more foundational.

Hoping they aren't bound in blood like Lee  _ knows _ they are. 

That hope shatters the day she sees Jim’s baby in Barbara’s arms. 

The hate fades, it softens because it  _ has  _ to, but the desperation doesn’t. Because they will always have something between them she cannot touch, they were always meant to be in some way. 

And hope can fight a lot of things, but not fate. 

And that’s one more truth she can’t deny. 


End file.
